eujin wrote:I'm not so sure about that. It all depends what forces are rallied against them. Despite spending lots of money, the Chinese have been humiliated this year (and long had problems with corruption in football themselves) and the West Asians have been humiliated for years (and long had problems with corruption in football themselves) so it wouldn't surprise me to see a few wanting to see Korea shown up in public on the grounds of "getting tough". There are plenty of people in Asian football who would love to see the Koreans taken down a notch or two. The OFC booted New Zealand out of their Olympic qualifying tournament even though they qualified for the final and ended up sending Fiji instead. Suffice to say that the Kiwis don't have many friends in the OFC, not the least reason being they keep winning everything.

The AFC risks having a finalist or even a tournament winner with a big question mark over them. That might be enough to get a few sponsors nervous. Companies like Nike have been burnt by this sort of thing in football in the past.

SEOUL, Jan. 12 (Yonhap) -- Reigning Asian club football champions Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors could lose their chance to defend the title this year due to a bribery scandal, the South Korean pro league office said Thursday.

The K League said the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has confirmed that Jeonbuk's eligibility for this year's AFC Champions League (ACL) will be reviewed by an independent judicial body called the Entry Control Body (ECB).

The ECB is external to the AFC and was established in December 2016. It has jurisdiction on reviewing and ruling on a team's eligibility for entering AFC competitions.

Was reading that an ex-Adelaide United chairman was apparently one of the decision makers on the committee that decided to boot Jeonbuk out of the competition (and consequently out of the group that Adelaide United were in) after the current Adelaide United chairman had been quite vociferous in his protests about Jeonbuk's inclusion in this year's tournament. Bit weak from the AFC really, Jeonbuk shouldn't have been in the draw to begin with.

As someone who likes to read the tea leaves of the Champions League I can't help but comment that Korea only got one club through the group stage this year and that was Jeju in only their second appearance. With Jeonbuk kicked out maybe we shouldn't read too much into that fact and things might well open up nicely for Jeju from here. Japan and China both got three teams through, but if past performance is any indication most of them will implode in the knock-out phase. Thai Muangthong are surely just making up the numbers despite their relative moneybags by Thai standards. It all feels very close though. Exciting times.

For the first time, I've seen a lot more of the western side of the AFC Champions league than the East. Seems the usual fairly even mix of teams from Iran (3), Saudi (2), UAE (2) and Qatar (1) in the knock out stage. The only two entertaining things for me in the draw is that firstly as Iran and Saudi are still at each others throats, the Esteghlal Khuzestan v Al-Hilal first leg will be in Oman (there were a few of the group stage games between the two countries' sides played in Oman as well). Secondly Al-Ahli appear to be playing with themselves in the Round of 16. Even without reading the tea leaves I'm confident we will see Al-Ahli in the quarter finals.

I wonder if Al-Ahli are officially the most successful club in world football in terms of titles. They've won the African Champions League 8 times as well, not to mention countless Egyptian league titles. Eat your heart out Celtic/Bayern/Juve/Barcelona.